LOS ANGELES — On June 28, as expected, the Los Angeles Kings placed veteran center Mike Richards on unconditional waivers. Once he clears waivers, the Kings will buy out his contract.

Although the buy out will give the Kings immediate salary cap relief, giving them an estimated $4.5 million extra to work with under the cap per capfriendly.com and generalfanager.com (Kings salary cap would be an estimated $61.8 million, down from $66.4 million), the buy out will be amortized over ten years, as far as the salary cap is concerned, with the Kings taking the following cap hits:

LOS ANGELES — In the 2012 National Hockey League Draft, the Kings had the final selection (30th overall). In 2014, they had the 29th overall pick, one ahead of the New Jersey Devils, who were moved behind all the other NHL teams in the first round as punishment for signing forward Ilya Kovalchuk to a contract that circumvented the league’s salary cap rules.

Getting stuck with the last pick in the first round of the draft (or 29th in 2014) was the “price” the Kings paid for winning the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014.

EL SEGUNDO, CA — Returning to practice ice after the National Hockey League All-Star break usually isn’t all that eventful for a team, but that was not the case for Los Angeles Kings, who found out that one of their own, veteran center Mike Richards, had been placed on waivers earlier in the day on January 26.

EL SEGUNDO, CA — As much as Los Angeles Kings President/General Manager Dean Lombardi talks when the media can get ahold of him for an interview, we often have to go through channels to reach him and sometimes, it can take weeks to finally get a chance to speak with him.

But on this day, Lombardi came downstairs from his offices at the Kings’ practice facility, the Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo, California, and asked the local media watching the team practice…

“Does anyone need to talk to me?”

Of course, he knew that, after having placed veteran center Mike Richards on waivers earlier in the day, the answer would be a resounding “yes.”

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